Cure.Fit buys Fitness First in an all-stock deal, plans expansion

Bengaluru/New Delhi: From plans of going global, to launching a full range of sports apparel and merchandise, Cure.Fit, run by Myntra’s founder Mukesh Bansal and ex-Flipster Ankit Nagori, has lined up a mega growth strategy for the Indian as well as the global markets. 

The Bengaluru-based health and fitness start-up acquired premium brand Fitness First in an all-stock deal. 

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This will help the company quickly expand in the Delhi-NCR and Mumbai markets.

The deal will see Los Angeles-based asset management firm Oaktree Capital Management, which owned Fitness First, acquire minority stake in Cure.Fit. The company did not share any further details of the deal, including the valuation of Fitness First.

“The key reason we went ahead with this deal with Fitness First is because it has a strong presence in Delhi and Mumbai, two markets we are yet to penetrate into,” said Mukesh Bansal, co-founder of Cure.Fit. “Part of our strategy is inorganic growth,” he added.

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The company plans to launch a whole range of merchandise under its Cult.Fit platform by end of this year. It has already hired chief designer for Myntra’s brand Roadster Gautam Kotamraju to go ahead with the plans. 

The fitness start-up plans to bring in a whole range of sportswear, accessories on the lines of French sporting goods giant Decathlon and sell it on its platform as well as on other e-commerce sites. “Our members keep on asking for Cult t-shirts and other merchandise. We give out some as this helps us in branding. That is how we realised that Cult, which is a pure fitness brand, can be used to sell sports apparel and merchandise. And, it can be a hit. We want to make the Cult brand something like Decathlon,” said Nagori.     

By 2020, the company believes that it would be ready to expand to cities in Southeast Asia. “Going global is one of the plans we are working on. Our investors believe that what we are offering will find a market abroad and we believe that it would happen within the next few years,” said Nagori. 

Cure.Fit will add 10 outlets to its 40 strong base of fitness centres across India through the acquisition. Fitness First will also bring to the brand hundreds of high-paying customers in two of the largest markets for fitness and also set the stage for the expansion of Eat.Fit and Mind.Fit offerings in Mumbai and Delhi. The company will have a total of 60,000 subscribed membership base post the merger.

Bansal said the acquisition will help the company reduce its time to market in the two new cities by around nine months since it takes significant time to acquire real estate, train trainers and then acquire customers. Going forward, he says this will be Cure.Fit’s method of quickly expanding its presence pan India.

“This acquisition is different because the earlier deals were much smaller to acquire the right talent or template, but this is a full fledged business which is running well. This is our first acquisition from that growth perspective and by combining Fitness First and Cult, we are now the second largest fitness chain in India,” added Bansal.

Cure Fit Healthcare is funded by Accel Partners, IDG, Kalaari, Ratan Tata and UC RNT. Cure.fit has different verticals, including Cult.fit, Mind.fit, Eat.fit and will have to-be-launched primary care Care.fit on the app.